Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/230

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OW to save one-half the coal bill and utilize the accumulations of waste around the house is suggested in the use of a simple press which converts waste paper, newspaper, letters, torn wrapping paper, old cardboard, old cord, rope or anything else that is combustible, into compressed bricks for burning in the stove or range. When used in combination with coal, the paper bricks make a very hot fire.

Rags and all burnable waste are first dropped into a pail of water. When they are thoroughly soaked, they are taken out of the water and stuffed into the cylinder of the press. The wheel is then turned, forcing a piston against the wet waste, and crushing the mass into a compact form. The brick is then removed from the press and set in the sun to dry, after which it is ready to be used.

The dry paper bricks may be boiled in paraffin and used as candles in the trenches. Strips of newspaper rolled up tightly into cylindrical form and then boiled in paraffin have already given much satisfaction as trench candles. Since the bricks are larger and more compactly pressed, they will burn much longer than the paper-strip candles.



N the accompanying photograph may be seen four streams of water being played on an imaginary fire in New York city. The stream nearest the ground is from a low pressure hydrant, the maximum pressure being only eighty pounds. The stream next above it is from a fire engine. In this case the pressure may be as high as from three hundred to four hundred and fifty pounds, which is sufficient to discharge from seven to nine hundred gallons of water a minute. Two high pressure streams are shown, one delivered from a deck pipe and the other from a water tower. The deck pipe stream, operating at a pressure of one hundred and seventy-five pounds, delivers one thousand, five hundred and ninety gallons of water a minute. The water tower, operating at one hundred and fifty pounds, delivers one thousand, four hundred and seventeen gallons of water a minute.

A water tower delivers water to the fifteenth floor, a deck pipe to the eighth floor, and a gasoline pumping engine has delivered working pressure at the fifty-sixth floor of the Woolworth Building. There are twenty-three hundred high pressure hydrants in New York city. 